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‘Help way earlier!’ How Australia can transform child justice to improve safety and wellbeing
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 ‘Help way earlier!’ How Australia can transform child justice to improve safety and wellbeing
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‘Help way earlier!’: executive summary
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‘Help way earlier!’: easy read
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3.17 MB |
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‘Help way earlier!’: easy read recommendations
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Australia is failing to implement effective, child rights-based approaches to reform child justice systems. This report investigates opportunities for reform based on evidence and the protection of human rights. It proposes an approach that addresses the social determinants of justice through upstream reform improving child health, learning and wellbeing.
Numerous inquiries and reviews, including Royal Commissions, as well as UN Committees, have highlighted serious breaches
of rights and systemic problems with our child justice and related systems over many years. However, Australia continually fails to implement evidence-based reforms to our child justice systems which would reduce offending behaviour and make our communities safer.
The authors of this report argue that current approaches to addressing ‘youth crime’ demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem and propose significant reform of the child justice system to address it by making child wellbeing a priority. Drawing on previous reports and information from stakeholders (including the voices of children and their families) the report investigates the barriers that are preventing Australia from implementing effective, child rights-based approaches to reform of child justice systems.
24 key evidence-based actions for reform of child justice systems are recommended by the report, in addition to the following key priorities.
Key recommendations
- Australian Governments establish a National Taskforce for reform of child justice systems.
- The Australian Government appoint a Cabinet Minister for Children.
- The Australian Government establish a Ministerial Council for Child Wellbeing.
- The Australian Government legislating a National Children’s Act as well as a Human Rights Act, incorporating the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The authors note that effective reform also requires:
- positioning children at the centre of policymaking and service delivery
- empowering First Nations children, families and communities
- optimising community-based action
- building a capable and child-specialised workforce
- basing systems on data and evidence, and
- embedding accountability for the rights of children.
